KORT is Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner and solo singer/songwriter Cortney Tidwell, and with covers album Invariable Heartache (City Slang), the duo has recorded a sort of love letter to its hometown of Nashville and the city’s musical past. Eleven of the LP’s dozen tracks were originally recorded in the ’60s and ’70s for the Music City-based Chart Records (a label with huge familial ties for Tidwell), and the 12th song was cut by Tidwell’s mom, Connie Eaton, in 1975 for ABC Dunhill. And while the heartfelt Invariable Heartache is certainly ensconced in Nashville’s storied musical history, it’s a thoroughly modern statement by two of the town’s brightest hopes for Music City’s future being as fertile as its past. Wagner and Tidwell will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with them.
Wagner: I’m not one to gawk at these sites all that much, but this one seemed to conjure up heartbreak from a different perspective: a dog’s. I’m sure we all have known, at sometime or another, a dog who finds it necessary to sing or howl along with performed music. I had one who would be particularly critical of my cello rehearsals. Yet in this instance, we find one who both plays and sings … sad as you please. I offer it here to you with the notion that with the right song and a little editing, it could surely be the source material for a new Animal Collective, Nine Inch Nails or maybe a KORT video.
